As climate changes, San Antonio gets hotter

Express-News Editorial Board

October 11, 2017

Photo: Kin Man Hui /San Antonio Express-News

Isaac Cruz Saucedo protects himself from extreme sun exposure as a Beldon Roofing crew works in July 2017. When climate scientists look at how global warming will change San Antonio, one clear signal emerges: An already-hot city is going to get hotter. By 2040 to 2060, nearly every day of an average July or August will be above 100 degrees, according to one computer model. That kind of warming is going to drive northward shifts in plant and animal ranges, lower agricultural productivity and a decline in the outdoor labor force. Predicting rainfall in the future is more difficult. While climate models predict a slight increase in intense rainstorms with longer dry periods in between, climate scientists say that we are heading into the unknown.

Isaac Cruz Saucedo protects himself from extreme sun exposure as a...

San Antonio is not immune from climate change. As the Earth has warmed over the past century, San Antonio has warmed right along with it. Since the 1880s, temperatures in the Alamo City have risen about 2.4 degrees, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reported.

While this might not sound like much, it is significant, fueling the melting of land ice and rising of sea levels. If greenhouse gas emissions are left unchecked, models predict sustained temperature increases. The predictions vary widely: 2.5 degrees to 8 degrees. But the trend, as Express-News reporter Brendan Gibbons recently outlined, is warmer and warmer.

The most obvious effect will be more triple-digit days locally. The new normal by the second half of this century will be 60 days a year of triple-digit temps. That’s good news for folks who want to fry eggs on their sidewalks, but it will be a drag on our livability.

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It will cost more to keep our homes cool. Productivity and economic output will suffer. Heat-related deaths will be more likely. Food prices will likely increase.

It wasn’t always this hot.

In the 1890s, there were 39 recorded days of triple-digit temperatures. That’s for an entire decade. In the 1930s, there were 61 triple-digit days. In the 1960s, there were 92 such days. In the 1990s, there were 144 days when the mercury hit at least 100 degrees.

In recent years, San Antonio has come close to 60 days of triple-digit temps. In 2009, we hit 100 degrees 59 times, for example. In 2011, there were 57 such days.

The threat of climate change is widespread and compared to the span of a human life, relatively slow-moving. But the consensus among scientists is that a warmer world will be a place of extreme weather, famine, intensified flooding on the coasts and the displacement of people.

The scale is so big, it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not. Action starts by accepting climate science and demanding that our elected officials accept and follow the science, as well. It means reducing emission where possible, and supporting the production and development of solar and wind energy sources.

San Antonio and the Earth have been warming, and we have a moral obligation to future generations and the planet to respond to that reality.